Brood of the Witch-Queen

Sax Rohmer

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• Publié par: mochir
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 36
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Brood of the Witch-Queen Author: Sax Rohmer Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19706] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN *** Produced by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN BY SAX ROHMER LONDON C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1918 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE [vii] I. ANTONY FERRARA II. THE PHANTOM H ANDS III. THE R ING OF THOTH IV. AT FERRARA'S C HAMBERS V. THE R USTLING SHADOWS VI. THE BEETLES VII. SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT VIII. THE SECRET OF D HOON IX. THE POLISH JEWESS X. THE LAUGHTER XI. C AIRO XII. THE MASK OF SET XIII. THE SCORPION WIND XIV. D R. C AIRN ARRIVES XV. THE WITCH-QUEEN XVI. LAIR OF THE SPIDERS XVII. THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED XVIII. THE BATS XIX. ANTHROPOMANCY XX. THE INCENSE XXI. THE MAGICIAN XXII. MYRA XXIII. THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-H OUSE XXIV. FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS XXV. C AIRN MEETS FERRARA XXVI. THE IVORY H AND XXVII. THE THUG 'S C ORD XXVIII. THE H IGH PRIEST H ORTOTEF XXIX. THE WIZARD'S D EN XXX. THE ELEMENTAL XXXI. THE BOOK OF THOTH 1 9 15 25 33 44 49 54 61 65 74 81 85 96 100 109 118 123 134 141 146 150 156 161 167 174 182 188 199 206 210 PREFATORY NOTICE The strange deeds of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised (according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but also in Europe, during the Middle Ages. In no case do the powers attributed to him exceed those which are claimed for a fully equipped Adept. S. R. [ix] BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN CHAPTER I ANTONY FERRARA Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings, mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead, where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from there the cooling breeze came. But Cairn's gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west below the chimneys. Within the room to which it belonged a lambent light played. Cairn turned to his companion, a ruddy and athletic looking man, somewhat bovine in type, who at the moment was busily tracing out sections on a human skull and checking his calculations from Ross's Diseases of the Nervous System. "Sime," he said, "what does Ferrara always have a fire in his rooms for at this time of the year?" Sime glanced up irritably at the speaker. Cairn was a tall, thin Scotsman, cleanshaven, square jawed, and with the crisp light hair and grey eyes which often bespeak unusual virility. [1] "Aren't you going to do any work?" he inquired pathetically. "I thought you'd come to give me a hand with my basal ganglia. I shall go down on that; and [2] there you've been stuck staring out of the window!" "Wilson, in the end house, has got a most unusual brain," said Cairn, with apparent irrelevance. "Has he!" snapped Sime. "Yes, in a bottle. His governor is at Bart's; he sent it up yesterday. You ought to see it." "Nobody will ever want to put your brain in a bottle," predicted the scowling Sime, and resumed his studies. Cairn relighted his pipe, staring across the quadrangle again. Then— "You've never been in Ferrara's rooms, have you?" he inquired. Followed a muffled curse, crash, and the skull went rolling across the floor. "Look here, Cairn," cried Sime, "I've only got a week or so now, and my nervous system is frantically rocky; I shall go all to pieces on my nervous system. If you want to talk, go ahead. When you're finished, I can begin work." "Right-oh," said Cairn calmly, and tossed his pouch across. "I want to talk to you about Ferrara." "Go ahead then. What is the matter with Ferrara?" "Well," replied Cairn, "he's queer." "That's no news," said Sime, filling his pipe; "we all know he's a queer chap. But he's popular with women. He'd make a fortune as a nerve specialist." "He doesn't have to; he inherits a fortune when Sir Michael dies." "There's a pretty cousin, too, isn't there?" inquired Sime slyly. "There is," replied Cairn. "Of course," he continued, "my governor and Sir Michael are bosom friends, and although I've never seen much of young Ferrara, at the same time I've got nothing against him. But—" he hesitated. "Spit it out," urged Sime, watching him oddly. "Well, it's silly, I suppose, but what does he want with a fire on a blazing night like this?" Sime stared. "Perhaps he's a throw-back," he suggested lightly. "The Ferraras, although they're counted Scotch—aren't they?—must have been Italian originally—" "Spanish," corrected Cairn. "They date from the son of Andrea Ferrara, the sword-maker, who was a Spaniard. Cæsar Ferrara came with the Armada in 1588 as armourer. His ship was wrecked up in the Bay of Tobermory and he got ashore—and stopped." "Married a Scotch lassie?" "Exactly. But the genealogy of the family doesn't account for Antony's habits." "What habits?" "Well, look." Cairn waved in the direction of the open window. "What does he do in the dark all night, with a fire going?" [3] "Influenza?" "Nonsense! You've never been in his rooms, have you?" "No. Very few men have. But as I said before, he's popular with the women." "What do you mean?" "I mean there have been complaints. Any other man would have been sent down." "You think he has influence—" "Influence of some sort, undoubtedly." "Well, I can see you have serious doubts about the man, as I have myself, so I can unburden my mind. You recall that sudden thunderstorm on Thursday?" "Rather; quite upset me for work." "I was out in it. I was lying in a punt in the backwater—you know, our backwater." "Lazy dog." "To tell you the truth, I was trying to make up my mind whether I should abandon bones and take the post on the Planet which has been offered me." "Pills for the pen—Harley for Fleet? Did you decide?" "Not then; something happened which quite changed my line of reflection." The room was becoming cloudy with tobacco smoke. "It was delightfully still," Cairn resumed. "A water rat rose within a foot of me [4] and a kingfisher was busy on a twig almost at my elbow. Twilight was just creeping along, and I could hear nothing but faint creakings of sculls from the river and sometimes the drip of a punt-pole. I thought the river seemed to become suddenly deserted; it grew quite abnormally quiet—and abnormally dark. But I was so deep in reflection that it never occurred to me to move. "Then the flotilla of swans came round the bend, with Apollo—you know Apollo, the king-swan?—at their head. By this time it had grown tremendously dark, but it never occurred to me to ask myself why. The swans, gliding along so noiselessly, might have been phantoms. A hush, a perfect hush, settled down. Sime, that hush was the prelude to a strange thing—an unholy thing!" Cairn rose excitedly and strode across to the table, kicking the skull out of his way. "It was the storm gathering," snapped Sime. "It was something else gathering! Listen! It got yet darker, but for some inexplicable reason, although I must have heard the thunder muttering, I couldn't take my eyes off the swans. Then it happened—the thing I came here to tell you about; I must tell somebody—the thing that I am not going to forget in a hurry." He began to knock out the ash from his pipe. "Go on," directed Sime tersely. "The big swan—Apollo—was within ten feet of me; he swam in open water, clear of the others; no living thing touched him. Suddenly, uttering a cry that chilled my very blood, a cry that I never heard from a swan in my life, he rose in the air, his huge wings extended—like a tortured phantom, Sime; I can never forget it—six feet clear of the water. The uncanny wail became a stifled hiss, and sending up a perfect fountain of water—I was deluged—the poor old kingswan fell, beat the surface with his wings—and was still." "Well?" "The other swans glided off like ghosts. Several heavy raindrops pattered on [5] the leaves above. I admit I was scared. Apollo lay with one wing right in the punt. I was standing up; I had jumped to my feet when the thing occurred. I stooped and touched the wing. The bird was quite dead! Sime, I pulled the swan's head out of the water, and—his neck was broken; no fewer than three vertebrae fractured!" A cloud of tobacco smoke was wafted towards the open window. "It isn't one in a million who could wring the neck of a bird like Apollo, Sime; but it was done before my eyes without the visible agency of God or man! As I dropped him and took to the pole, the storm burst. A clap of thunder spoke with the voice of a thousand cannon, and I poled for bare life from that haunted backwater. I was drenched to the skin when I got in, and I ran up all the way from the stage." "Well?" rapped the other again, as Cairn paused to refill his pipe. "It was seeing the firelight flickering at Ferrara's window that led me to do it. I don't often call on him; but I thought that a rub down before the fire and a glass of toddy would put me right. The storm had abated as I got to the foot of his stair —only a distant rolling of thunder. "Then, out of the shadows—it was quite dark—into the flickering light of the lamp came somebody all muffled up. I started horribly. It was a girl, quite a pretty girl, too, but